[from Joel Judd]
re: Bill (920429)
It's obvious that the unbelievers are not suddenly going to be converted to
Control Theory for >Christ, and that the True Believers are not going to switch
from BEING believers to STUDYING >believers.
In my case, I agree with the first clause but not the second. I am
interested in BELIEVING, whic is why I tried to formulate the
convergence/divergence question ABOUT belief, and framed it in terms of my
own experience. The go-around last spring made it clear why someone is not
going to suddenly switch belief systems, and that's fine. But that polemic
ended with the call to be more "scientific" and find ways of understanding
CONCEPTS. Regardless of the belief, there should be characteristics of
control of CONCEPTS which can be examined just as control of other
perceptions. I think Greg's post shows one way to start.
...a system of beliefs is an elaborate thing that has the power to take over
the mind and shape every >aspect of experience to fit it...In trying to learn
and improve...we have all come up against our own >beliefs...
All the more reason to understand them. Would it be fair to say that even
such objective topics as PCT are understood according to these belief
systems? Obviously, I've been trying to fit it into mine, and judging from
the comments, so have/are others.
I think what I would find useful is the development of an efficient way to
get a handle on one's beliefs and their influence on one's actions--a sort
of placement test, if you will. The method of levels has been discussed
previously as a way of getting at higher level goals, or at least as far as
one can recognize and verbalize them. What about going the "other way"?
Supposing that one's belief about the nature and purpose of language is X,
Y and Z, how do I begin to be aware of how that system influences
linguistic principles and the syntactic quirks I control for and so on in a
way that can be useful, both as a potential teacher or learner? Ed Ford has
explained several times how he uses a proceedure to help people become
aware of what they're controlling for and how this helps empower them to
improve important relationships and resolve conflict. I am thinking that
learning some things requires even more detail in terms of the perceptual
hierarchy--another language, or adult literacy--there's a lot involved in
making such changes in one's life. Obviously, such changes can be made. But
how might we go about explaining such change in more detail?
Rick (920429),
Congratulations! Does City Hall need a PCT analyst? You were a little bit
off, though. CNN was showing burning buildings and rioters by about 1900
hours, I think.